Alliance of Democrats

The Alliance of Democrats (SD) was a liberal political party in Poland that was founded on 18 September 1937. The party was founded by anti-authoritarian democratic clubs in Warsaw in September 1937. During World War II, the Alliance of Democrats assisted the Polish Underground State in its resistance movement against Nazi Germany, but the party split into pro-communist and pro-Western factions in 1943, leading to the pro-Western leaders being tried and executed by the NKVD in 1945. In the Polish People's Republic, the SD became a satellite party of the Polish United Workers' Party, but it retained its non-Marxist orientation. The party voted against abolishing the Solidarity labor union and supported the anti-communist underground opposition; in 1989, party representatives took part in roundtable talks with the communist government and the Solidarity activists, and it assisted with the democratization process. After 1990, many of its members joined other parties such as the Freedom Union of Poland. In 2009, Pawel Piskorski's defection to the party led to it experiencing a rebirth.